One connection I see between novelists and terrorists is that we both attempt to alter consciousness.

Pain is just another form of information.

When I work, I'm just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that's not familiar. But I'm not trying to manipulate reality. This is just what I see and hear.

The term itself--my life--is a desperate overstatement.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I am not comfortable with abstract writing, stories that look like essays: you have to see, I need to see.

If an idea seems to find its way towards a stage setting, that's the direction I take. I don't know if I'm trying to achieve anything other than to follow an idea on to the page.